My Winding Wheel

“Esmy!” Esmeralda’s eyes snapped open, her heart racing as she slipped slightly from her sleeping position at her desk. She sat up straight in her broken rolling chair, looking from left to right for the source of the voice as her shoulders began to tense. At the call of her name again, Esmeralda quickly turned her chair around again, causing a loud screech to ring out through out the small office. Blushing, Esmeralda sunk down in her seat slightly, her shoulders hunching as she did. Within a few seconds, a redheaded woman with a uniquely off-white smile popped up from behind the wall of the small cubicle she was holed up in. The woman wasn’t the typical beautiful, but she was attractive in a quirky way. Her blue eyes always had a child-like sparkle to them and the freckles on her pale skin got her compliments constantly from Kevin from shipping downstairs. “Did you hear?”

“Did I hear…what?” Esmeralda paused, tilting her head slightly at the woman curiously as she spoke with a sarcasm that was not unfamiliar to her voice, “The super important announcement you’re about to tell me that I most definitely heard already?”

“Yes!” The redhead gave her another wide grin, walking around to perch herself on Esmeralda’s desk. Esmeralda glanced down at her Chanel shoes, glaring in jealously for a moment. Glancing back up with a slight grin, Esmeralda relaxed slowly as the tension she had moments before from her sudden wake up was slowly drained from her shoulders. The redhead adjusted herself comfortably, leaning forward to stare into Esmeralda’s eyes deeply, “So, you know Kevin from shipping?”

“Quite possibly. If I say no you’re going to say whatever it is anyways, so yes I do know this Kevin you speak of. What does that have to do with this news you have for me?”

The woman really did have a voice that could annoy Esmeralda so easily is sometimes baffled her, whether she came with good intentions or not. So even as she spoke her good news to Esmeralda, it took all she had to not cringe away from the woman in her loud and slightly fake voice she used around work, “Well, Kevin told me that he overheard Marsha from the boss’s office talking in the bay wings of the shipping department about this certain brunette we know getting a promotion today!”

"...No!" Esmeralda nearly fell out of her chair again, her hands gripping the handles so hard they turned white. She let go with one hand, pointing to herself as she silently asked 'me' with wide eyes. The redheaded woman nodded, smiling broadly at her. Esmeralda squealed excitedly, flying out of her chair and into the woman's open and waiting arms. They yelled excitedly together, laughing as Esmeralda nearly knocked her off the desk. Esmeralda pulled back slightly, placing her hands on the woman's shoulders as a serious look took over, "Margret, do you know what this means?"

"You're buying our drinks now?" Margret asked with a sarcastic tone, rolling her eyes at Esmeralda as she crossed her arms over her chest. Esmeralda huffed in annoyance, glaring at Margret as she mimicked her defiantly crossed arms, "No! Margret, this is my one chance now to finally prove something! Finally, after years of breaking my back over this damn corporation, I can stand out above the crowds. I can boldly walk into this office now, with my head held high, and you get to call me boss and fetch my coffee for me now instead of that one nuisance."

The two women shared a look as they said her name in unison, “Kelly.”

“Yes, while I understand that, what if it doesn’t happen? Just, be careful Esmy…”

“Trust me!” Esmeralda crossed her small cubicle, grabbing her paperwork to put back into her bag and shuffling about to gather her electronics. Margret watched her with a smile, noting each thing Esmeralda forgot so she could remind her like she always did. Esmeralda packed away her laptop, bustling about excitedly as she mumbled about each item she grabbed. Margret sighed, tapping the desk as she watched and made her mental list. Esmeralda stopped at the opening to her cubicle, patting down all her pockets as she glanced around the small space again. Margret rolled her eyes, grinning as she pointed to Esmeralda’s desk. In her typical sarcastic tone of voice she reserved usually for out of work, Margret quickly listed off the items, “IPod charger, headphones, planner, wallet, and as always your iPhone is still in the drawer on vibrate.”

“What, dear Margret, would I do without you to watch my back?”

“My dearest Esmy, you’d never survive out there without me. All you’d be is a pretty face with a missing iPhone!”

“Touché,” Esmeralda grinned, nodding to Margret, “Minus the pretty face part, of course.”

Esmeralda Corteze wasn’t the most confident woman in the world, though she had no reason for insecurity. When she was younger, she was a short, stocky, and brace-faced Latina with a hot head that got made fun of a bit. Tubby Wubby would forever haunt her nightmares, honestly. However, the summer between middle school and her freshmen year of high school she lost her braces and lost her “baby fat”, as her mother affectionately called it. Suddenly, short little Tubby Wubby was a 5’7” Latin woman who leaned out and curved up. Boys tried to talk to her, she wrote it off as a joke. Instead of focusing on dating and trying to look like a cute girl, she focused on studying and wore sweats to school with no makeup at all every day. Even through college, she was more into studies than dating. Esmeralda had relationships, sure, but they only lasted a few months before men got irritated with her.

But at twenty-three with her two degrees in Business and Sociology, Esmeralda didn’t mind. For work, she felt the need to “dress up”, as she deemed it. On a daily basis she wore a nice pencil skirt, button up, and cardigan in different shades. Margret came into the picture after her first year as an intern when she was nineteen and changed that. Suddenly, Esmeralda found herself purchasing cute dresses and outfits that didn’t look like her older brother’s clothing. She started to style her long dark brown hair into more appealing cuts. Her soft hazel-green eyes began to become accented by dark charcoal colored make-ups on a daily basis, styled the way Margret deemed “smoky-eyed”. Her light, slightly pale, olive-toned skin played off of her dark hair and suddenly, Esmeralda Corteze felt like an actual woman. However, she still lacked a key confidence she deserved.

Smiling over at Margret, Esmeralda grabbed the last of her items as she began to mumble to her self, “We need a night out on the town to celebrate. Drinks on me?”

“Oh hell yes, I’m in.”

Esmeralda Corteze really did need to learn not to jump the gun. You would think she would have, after all the misfortunes she had experienced in her life. For some reason though, she always stayed positive. Or, well, at least she seemed to. Esmeralda Corteze was, indeed, a mess. But she was content with the mess that was her life and that was all that mattered to her.